Dusky Balls: NightSky Demo

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NightSky – the latest game from micro-platforming supremo Nifflas, is out now. And if that’s not exciting enough news for you, there’s a demo to try to get you there. The full game is £10, but the demo – it’s free! Crazy. Once more it’s physics platforming, this time rolling a metal sphere through levels in a peculiar dream world. Knowing that it’s Nifflas, through Nicalis, should be all the information you need. The original trailer is below.

Personally, I’m not sure of the timing, but I think it looks more like Trundle on iOS.
EDIT: Though, after doing some very poor research on the topic, it looks like Trundle came out early 2010, and there were screenshots of what would become NightSky in 2009. So, yeah.

It does the Braid backtracking at the endgame cop-out, but unlike Braid you don’t feel like you’ve earned what you get.
But apart from the last level, it’s super worth your money.
Just set it to US, not UK, so you pay $10, not £10

Although I’m not a fan of physics puzzle games, Nifflas’ two coming projects sound promising. The Great Work is supposedly almost complete. Video here. And working title (at least I hope) KnyttWaDF is “a hybrid somewhere between Knytt and Within a Deep Forest, and contains game mechanics from both, and have a story that’s also connected to those games”. No video, but some screenshots and info can be found here.

I’m not sure why the comments here are so negative, I think it’s absolutely lovely. If you liked any of Nifflas’ previous games (especially Within a Deep Forest) you’ll love this. It’s got Nifflas’ classic ambience, with more detail than I’ve seen in his other games. On the Normal level the challenges vary between simple and… challenging and, like World of Goo, it looks like it’s going to introduce more interesting mechanics as the game progresses.

There are some small frustrations, such as having to restart at the beginning of each three level sequence, but Nifflas is a developer well worth supporting in my opinion. And he’s stated on the forum that if you buy the Windows version, you’ll get the Mac and Linux ones when they’re released.

Really? All those other Indie games mentioned and no Gumboy, the only other game I know that has physics-based platforming and a main character that is actually a spinning ball? It’s neat because instead of running sideways and/or jumping, you actually spin. Like this game. Why am I the only one who remembers this!?!

I’m not saying Night Sky is “unoriginal”, but if this was 1991 and everyone was ooh-ing and ah-ing over Sonic and no one remembered Super Mario Bros. 3 from the previous year, that would be fucking tragic.

This is a trend I’ve noticed with Indie games. The best of the best Indie games are remembered for years. Anything less than the best of the best is forgotten after no more than a year. Meanwhile mediocre AAA games are zombified by their publishers from the dead remains of their developers (all fired long ago) and sent shambling off to the bargain bins at the local Genericmart. And sure, it’s nice to find a copy of NOLF 2 when you had long given up all hope of getting one, but does anyone even remember that Duck Doom ever existed?

But I digress.

EDIT: Not that NOLF 2 is mediocre. I was just using a real example of something I managed to buy long after the developers were all gone on to other companies.

I remember Gumboy Crazy Adventures just fine, it was a good game that just sort of missed that first big indie wave. A lot of people here would have liked it. But it’s not a direct comparison because you weren’t just a ball in that one.